SpaceX is a huge step closer to flying its enormous Starship spaceship into orbit, conducting an engine-firing test at the launch pad on Thursday.
Thirty-one of the 33 first-stage booster engines ignited simultaneously for roughly 10 seconds in south Texas. The crew switched off one engine before delivering the firing order and another engine shut down—”but still enough engines to achieve orbit!” tweeted SpaceX’s Elon Musk.
Musk predicts Starship’s first orbital test flight may occur as soon as March, assuming the test analyses and final preparations go well.
The booster stayed fastened to the pad as intended throughout the test. There were no evidence of substantial damage to the launch tower.
NASA is banking on Starship to take passengers to the surface of the moon in a few years, hooking up with its Orion spacecraft in lunar orbit. Further down the line, Musk plans to utilise the enormous Starships to bring crowds to Mars.
Only the first-stage Super Heavy booster, towering 230 feet (69 metres) tall, was employed for Thursday’s test. The futuristic second stage—the component that will really land on the moon and Mars—was in the hangar getting ready for takeoff.
Altogether, Starship towers 394 feet (120 metres), making it the tallest and most powerful rocket ever constructed. It’s capable of producing 17 million pounds of liftoff force, roughly twice that of NASA’s moon rocket that flew an empty capsule to the moon and returned late last year.
SpaceX ignited up to 14 Starship engines last autumn and performed a fuelling test at the pad this month.
Flocks of birds fled as Starship’s engines came alive and threw thick black plumes of smoke over the Starship launch facility, called Starbase. It’s situated in the southernmost part of Texas near the community of Boca Chica, close to the Mexican border.
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